Welcome to the Friends of St Marys Peldon
Oak hammerbeam trusses to nave roof, undoubtedly the finest feature of the church
Peldon is a small village to the south of Colchester. With views down to nearby Mersea Island, the village is overlooked by its church, St Mary The Virgin.
The Friends of St. Mary’s is a charity, formed by volunteers, on a non-religious basis, in March 2006. Its aim is to help maintain, repair, restore and improve the fabric of the church and its groundsfor the benefit of the community and visitors.
St Mary the Virgin
Peldon
Warden’s Review October 2010– October 2011
Let me say again as I said last year that this is a personal review that will, hopefully, celebrate much of what the Friends of St Mary’s have been doing for us this year
Events:2010
Music at St Mary’s 1 Chamber concert for piano quartet – October 8th
A lovely concert. On our part we provided refreshments and generally supervised. There was an ‘incident’ over car-parking which sadly PVH have not let us forget so that we now have to put out ‘Please park in the road’ signs. We did not get very much money as a hire fee for the church funds but persuaded Roman River to raise the fee to £150 for 2011.
Bazaar – December 4th
Sadly this had to be abandoned after such a lot of preparation. The weather was appalling – the worst early winter weather in living memory and the path to the church was impassable.
Christmas Carol singing – December 21st
We had a goodly number and raised over £200 – the whole event seemed to have picked up after a bit of a lull the year before and despite the fact that the hard winter still prevailed we had much fun and laugher and wonderful food at the Coans at the end of the evening.
Carols up the Tower – December 25th
A number of ‘Friends’ came to sing with us and, after this, its fourth year. It was a extremely cold and windy and the camera froze so we don’t have photos for our archive !
2011
Highland Fling – February 5th
This ran fine but we do notice that the numbers overall are falling. Still, there are more than enough to keep the kitchens busy and to enjoy some dancing.
Peldon History Lecture 1 – March 9th
On the outside – poachers, smugglers and highwaymen with William Tyler. An excellent talk and of course refreshments afterwards. We are beginning to feel the pinch in terms of numbers. So long as we get enough to fill the wooden chairs we look comfortably ‘full’.
Easter Carols – April 24th
Easter Sunday we repeated Carols up the Tower ( following the Christmas event) and attracted a dozen singers (hardy enough to brace the Spring winds blowing from the Steppes!). What is interesting is that quite a number of people comment on the carols because one can hear them in the village..
Music at St Mary’s 2: Truan Trust Concert – April 30th
This was not officially on our list of concerts but was slipped in because we knew we would lose our autumn concert (with Cross-Winds Brass) due to the rewiring project in September. In the event, Friends provided the refreshments and front of house and we eventually raised £1000 for the Truan Trust.
Peldon History Lecture 2 coupled with Music at St Mary’s 3 – May 29th
Riotous Assembly – The Essex riots of 1790 – 1820 – with Riotous Assembly. This was part of the May Festival and is worth a separate comment because, though very well performed, it was not as well attended as we would have liked. Questions were raised about the detail of information on the publicity. It was in fact a ‘folk music’ concert but our regular clientele may have thought it was something else!
May Festival – 27th – 29th
The Friends worked without PVH on this event. Friday started off with an informal evening of shanties at The Plough. On Saturday the Friends supervised everything – the exhibitions in the church – Art, Photographs and Flowers, the stalls in the Village hall, tower open event, refreshments. On Sunday we had a Pet Service , Open Gardens, Hunt the Gnome, Petanque and Scarecrows in the afternoon with a refreshment stop at PVH and at some of the gardens too and the final concert given by Riotous Assembly. Full reports in Parish News as for other Friends events.
Music at St Mary’s 4 : Summer Miscellany – July 16th
This was once again an evening of songs, readings and poetry with local village musicians and readers. This was very well attended and honourable mention could go to Sean Buckley, Naomi Tamblyn, Chris Moore, Joan Ellis, Jessica Ellis, Jayne Suddaby, Elaine Barker and Adrian May and our last minute, but very good, pianist Peter Dollimore who we had poached from Mersea for this event!
Peldon History Lecture 3 – October 5th
The Witch Craze in Essex in the 16th and 17th centuries – with Christopher Thompson. Only a small group attended what was in the event mysterious and fascinating. Friends do need to be thinking about other methods of publicity. This was worthy of a bigger crowd. The refreshments were great as ever!
Harvest Supper – October 1st
This had been moved from September because of the worry that the church would not be ready after the rewiring. We did have two long tables set and 2 dozen people to celebrate. Good food, good company, some readings and a song!
Music at St Mary’s 5:
Engegard Quartet with Matthew Hunt Concert – October 8th
We are now established on the Roman River Festival circuit. This was packed out. We had the new lighting rig, and hopefully our ‘facilities fee’ will be higher than in previous years.. And we solved the parking problem too !
Collaborations:
The Friends seek to find ways to put the Village’s prestigious Grade One Listed to good use, 7 days a week for the benefit of the wider community.
We have been so pleased to work together with village groups including:
Village Lunch, St Mary’s Flower Arrangers, Peldon Village Hall, PAWS, the Art Club, and Roman River Festival.
While Friends can put on events on its own, collaboration will continue to be important.
Fund Raising and Achievement - Church Fabric Projects
It takes years to bring some projects to fruition. This has been the year of consolidation and some achievement
1. Renewal of the flooring – a detailed scheme involving more than just laying paving – there is archaeology to sort out, a void to fill under the right hand section, various items to be moved and/or stored, a channel to be formed to house wiring and other services, reinforced areas to be created to take the weight of the gallery. We have dug holes in the tower floor for archaeological investigation and have had a bat report (because you cant do any work in a church during the bat flying season) – and we have finally reached agreement on the stone to be used on the floor. total cost around £80,000 – considerably more than estimated last year. Virtually no fund raising for this project as yet.
2. The replacement of the electrics – new lights, new heating, new mains board, and all the usual fitments to create a safe environment. We agreed to move the mains board and extend the electrics into the porch,( make it possible for us to then wire outside to the toilet) and up the tower to the new room. – total cost around £23,000 THIS HAS BEEN COMPLETED ON BUDGET Cory provided us with a grant of £15,000.
3. Provision of a kitchenette , ‘wet’ area and toilet – these are needed in recognition of the increasing use of the church by various groups. They need to conform with recent Health and Safety regulations and will involve ground work across the church yard to the main services. Carillion are helping us with ground work when we get to the excavation stage and assuming that we can go ahead with a North Porch build, drawings have been made – total cost around £80, 000 The big issue will be funding of course. Several funders are interested and we have passed preliminary enquiry stage with Essex Environmental and National Churches Trust but hope to get a larger funder on board in view of the proximity of the reservoir.
4. Silence Chamber – this was a new addition to our list of works. It was cheaper to add a new floor to the tower under the bell than to pay for extensive scaffolding to reach the bell.. The new room has been created. It now has lighting and can be used as a museum room. There is an entrance from the Tower Staircase already. This cost around £3,500.
THIS HAS BEEN COMPLETED ON BUDGET.
We had a grant of £2,700 from Essex Heritage Trust.
5.Restore the Miles Gray Bell (1613) – also a new addition. We are trying to raise funds for this project. . The bell was removed from the church 50 years ago after it cracked. It is now being mended and will be re-hung next to the existing bell—cost £6000. Work will start in the late autumn of 2011. We hope to have raised £3000 in additional funding.
6. Creation of a new Gallery Room and Stair case – this feature would re-create the original West Gallery with a grand view over the church interior, used for additional seating for events, or as a small meeting room. total cost £15,000 A project for the distant future but we keep it in mind even so as we are so short of space.
7. The collapsed vault beneath a table tomb ( the Bullock tomb) – the collapse of this vault was unforeseen. We have stubbornly held out for a simple solution to the problem ( a chamber 8 square meters with crumbling roof. ) We hope to report a simple and cheap solution to the next AGM. The main issue here is that no funders will touch the project. Repairs estimates run to £13,000 which we challenge as an unacceptable strain when other projects are more important.
The challenges for the Friends as an organisation are unchanging:
1. to keep the village appraised of the rationale for changes and keep villagers on-side with our vision that shows the Church as a Community Facility . To this end we are trying to keep our Web site more up to date with news and, hopefully, views from YOU, the Friends.
2. to seek out funding bodies and persuade them to help us- not easy in a time of recession!
3. to raise at least £50.000 ourselves in the next few of years, assuming that funders will provide the other 50% needed for each project.
It is, once again over to you !
Please consider helping us.
Your support – as members of the Friends –ensures representation and provides ideas for fundraising and person-power for events.
We have had a great five years – but we have only just begun!
